It's Raining in Love

That poem I posted a few days ago - which I ran across in the Donald Hall anthology I’ve been reading for days and loved primarily for its brevity and accuracy - has been tickling in the back of my mind, because I knew it reminded me of another poem I’d read once. That other poem popped into my head this morning. (I read it first on Tom’s blog, years and years ago.) 

So here it is.

It’s Raining in Love

I don’t know what it is,
But I distrust myself
When I start to like a girl
A lot. 

It makes me nervous. 
I don’t say the right things 
Or perhaps I start 
To examine, 
Evaluate, 
Compute 
What I am saying. 

If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain? ” 
and she says, “I don’t know, ” 
I start thinking: Does she really like me? 

In other words 
I get a little creepy. 

A friend of mine once said, 
“It’s twenty times better to be friends 
with someone 
than it is to be in love with them.” 

I think he’s right and besides, 
its raining somewhere, programming flowers 
and keeping snails happy. 
That’s all taken care of. 

BUT 
if a girl likes me a lot 
and starts getting real nervous 
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions 
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers 
and she says things like, 
“Do you think it’s going to rain? ” 
and I say, “It beats me, ” 
and she says, “Oh, ” 
and looks a little sad 
at the clear blue California sky, 
I think: Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time 
Instead of me.

(Richard Brautigan)